Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Shoving my shoulder against him, I tried to look serious as I whispered to him, “Walmart. We’re in Walmart, not some kind of porn movie.”
“Oh, right. You were the one who was gonna get us kicked out of Walmart, not me. Got things confused for a second.” He gave me a lopsided smile. “I’m sorry, Adri.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was genuinely contrite — and the thought filled me with baffling warmth, maybe even pride. As much as he hid his emotions, I knew he was messing with me. It wouldn’t have seemed like much to anyone else, or they might’ve rolled their eyes and said “duh,” but it was one of the first times I’d been able to tell he was teasing me instead of making a nasty jab.
Had he always been teasing, and I’d just never understood that? Were his social skills as bad as mine? Had his good vocabulary and smartass responses hidden things that I hadn’t known to look for? Had he just needed to grow up to be a nicer person?
I wished I knew one way or the other. The Owen I knew now wasn’t the same person I’d known before. At least, I didn’t think he was. I couldn’t even picture grocery shopping with the old Owen, much less joking with him… let alone everything else we’d done. Being in the same room had been almost impossible before everything had changed. But watching him as we walked through the store, all I wanted to do was hold his hand and lean into him.
It had to be ironic in some way that I hadn’t wanted to have anything to do with the old Owen, but now that I wanted to be closer to him, I couldn’t. At least not in public. Leaning close to bump into his shoulder again, I smiled. “You can make it up to me later.” That look of wide-eyed innocence hadn’t faded, even though we both knew he was far from innocent. How long had it been since he had been innocent? How long had I missed out on being the big brother? He hadn’t let me, but I could’ve tried harder…
Owen must’ve noticed the look on my face — which felt far from fair — and he tapped me lightly on the nose with his finger. “Stop that,” he said sternly. “You’re doing the thing. Don’t do the thing. I guess I’ll just have to make you stop thinking when we get home…”
It sent a shiver through me, and it helped to assuage some of the guilt. It had been a long time ago. As distant as I’d been, neither of us had made overtures. Maybe that was something about being a pup, too. No thoughts but joy and pleasure, no thoughts about reality, and maybe…
Just maybe accepting that relaxing was okay. I could let go of things for more than for a few minutes here and there. “I like it when you help me turn everything off in my head. I… When I was first looking at the stuff online, I really didn’t understand. I thought I did, but it was so confusing. When you…” I looked around to make sure we were relatively alone as we made our way through the deli section and up to the front of the store. Seeing no one was close by, I started again. “When you take control and I’m a pup, it’s like everything I’m worrying about stops and just fades away because you’re handling it and I don’t have to. I hadn’t realized how much I needed that.”
For a moment, he only watched me. Without so much as a glance around, he touched my cheek briefly, not nearly long enough. I wanted to take his hand and hold it against my skin.
“Guess we’re both learning a lot about ourselves lately,” he said. As vague as that was, I felt another surge of pride. He was starting to trust me. I was an open book. I knew that. I didn’t want to be as easy to read as I was, but in a way, I was glad.
If I hadn’t been, this might not have ever started at all.
“But seeing as how you have no sense of adventure, we have to get home if I’m gonna get you back into that mood,” he added.
I gave him a look. “Do you have to do that?”
Owen blinked at me, and a flicker of uncertainty crossed his features. “I thought you wanted—”
“Not that,” I interrupted him. “Change the subject every time it starts getting too personal.” “Can we have this conversation later, somewhere that’s not in Walmart?” Owen asked, but there was still that evasiveness. I was afraid if I let it go, he’d keep avoiding the topic.
Walmart wasn’t the place to discuss anything about our… relationship, or whatever we were going to call it, but I didn’t want to keep running from it. “Promise? I-I want to get to know the real you more, and you said you didn’t want to stop. But when you do that, it feels like you’re running from me. And now I sound like some kind of teenage drama queen.” Sighing, I turned and tried to stop obsessing. He was probably right. This wasn’t the time or place for that talk.